casket?" Breaking from such
interrogations, to which I could give but abrupt and evasive answers, I
seized my hat and took my departure.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Letter from Allen Fenwick to Lilian Ashleigh.

"I have promised to go to Derval Court to-day, and shall not return
till to-morrow. I cannot bear the thought that so many hours should
pass away with one feeling less kind than usual resting like a cloud
upon you and me. Lilian, if I offended you, forgive me! Send me one
line to say so!--one line which I can place next to my heart and
cover with grateful kisses till we meet again!"

Reply.

"I scarcely know what you mean, nor do I quite understand my own state
of mind at this moment. It cannot be that I love you less--and
yet--but I will not write more now. I feel glad that we shall not
meet for the next day or so, and then I hope to be quite recovered. I
am not well at this moment. Do not ask me to forgive you; but if it
is I who am in fault, forgive me, oh, forgive me, Allen!"

And with this unsatisfactory note, not worn next to my heart, not
covered with kisses, but thrust crumpled into my desk like a creditor's
unwelcome bill, I flung myself on my horse and rode to Derval Court.
I am naturally proud; my pride came now to my aid. I felt bitterly
indignant against Lilian, so indignant that I resolved on my return to
say to her, "If in those words, 'And yet,' you implied a doubt whether
you loved me less, I cancel your vows, I give you back your freedom."
And I could have passed from her threshold with a firm foot, though with
the certainty that I should never smile again.

Does her note seem to you who may read these pages to justify such
resentment? Perhaps not. But there is an atmosphere in the letters
of the one we love which we alone--we who love--can feel, and in the
atmosphere of that letter I felt the chill of the coming winter.

I reached the park lodge of Derval Court late in the day. I had occasion
to visit some patients whose houses lay scattered many miles apart,
and for that reason, as well as from the desire for some quick bodily
exercise which is so natural an effect of irritable perturbation of
mind, I had made the journey on horseback instead of using a carriage
that I could not have got through the lanes and field-paths by which
alone the work set to myself could be accomplished in time.

Just as I entered the park, an uneasy though